September 11th
by bubblyangel101
Summary: A short one-shot about 9/11. And, yes, I know the characters live in Japan, and not America. Change that: it's not a one-shot anymore. The plot bunnies have decided to attack me with Chapter 2. *sighs* :D
1. Chapter 1

I haven't updated in a while on my other stories. Sorry!

This poem is in remembrance of 9/11.

oOo

I stood in the doorway of our house

On that fateful day

Watching you wave to me

As you walked away

The birds were whistling

Sweetly in the trees

Your jacket was rustling

As it swayed from the breeze

Soon you turned the corner

And disappeared from sight

I started to worry and told myself,

"Come on, he'll be alright."

Now that I think about it

I regret what I didn't do

I could've stopped you as you walked

Along that avenue

When it was time, you hadn't come home

So I turned on the TV to amuse me

And almost fell to the floor in shock

From what I'd just seen

The Twin Towers collapsed that day

You became MIA

But I know, deep in my heart,

That everything's okay

It's just a special feeling

That I can't describe

I feel it, in my bones

I know you're alive

How you survived and where you are;

That I do not know

I don't know everything, after all

I'm waiting here alone

You've always been special to me

You, my best friend

I've waited for you once before

And so I'll wait again

When I'm losing hope

This to myself I say:

He'll come back, of course he will,

He'll be here someday

I am 100% sure

That that prophecy is true

The question is whether or not

It matters that much to you

Your absence beside me now

Matters not to me

Because I know, that _someday_,

In the future we'll meet

oOo

I stood in the doorway of our house

The wind whipped my hair

I call out to you silently

And whisper, "Are you there?"

You really came, walking up the street

Your clothes were a mess

I was elated to see you back

I'm sure you know the rest

Remember that prediction that I made:

"He'll come, he really will."

Now I know what predictions are for

They're meant to be fulfilled

Other people who lost

Loved ones that day

Weren't as lucky as I am

I'm truly sorry to say

As I turn to scold you for

Leaving me alone for 5 weeks

You put a finger to your lips

Begging me not to speak

From the pockets of your coat

You produce an American flag

You begin to give a speech

And say, "I really am glad."

"Glad to be back again

Glad to be safe.

Glad that I have not lost my life

Glad that it's not too late."

You raise your arms up high

And you spread them out wide

"It's not to late to express my regret

For all the innocent people who died."

To all the people who lost their lives

Protecting me and everyone else:

Thank you so much for what you've done

You sacrificed yourself

oOo

Now when people visit us

They stop and stare at the door

On it hangs our nation's flag

They ask, "What's that for?"

I've gotten tired of relaying my story

To those who come to my home

And that's why I'm holding a pen

And writing this poem

The red stripes mean that

Much blood was shed

The white stripes mean that

It's the innocent who are dead

And the blue...well, I don't know

What that stands for

Maybe it means that we want peace

And no more war

No more sadness, no more hate

No more depression

No more worrying, no more tears

No more tension

I stand in the doorway of our home

You stand beside me

Nothing's wrong with the world anymore

And we are all happy

oOo

Everything must come to an end

This poem must, too

There is one last message I want to say

To the reader, you:

Be thankful that you live in a country

Where you can do what you want:

Dancing, writing, playing sports

Or even singing songs

And so I'd like you to set aside some time

To be thankful today

To be thankful that you live here

In the USA.

oOo

Please review! :)


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry to all the people who were confused by the poem! I didn't realize that it sounded so un-Conan-ish...

oOo

Kazuha coughed. _The smoke is getting worse..._she thought before another fit of rapid coughing made her bend over.

"Oi...are ya sure yer all right?"

Kazuha glared at Heiji. "DO YA THINK I AM? IF I WERE, I WOULDN'T BE COUGHI-" she broke off before another bout of coughing snatched her breath away.

When Heiji didn't respond, Kazuha looked around for him. He was crawling on all fours.

He picked up something whiteish from a cabinet. "Aha! Here it is!"

"Here is what?"

"The oxygen mask, aho." Heiji reached over and fastened it to Kazuha. "You can breathe now. There's enough to last ya a couple o' hours." He smiled briefly, and this time his smile was a genuine one, with no hint of mockery. "It'll get ya outta here."

Kazuha nodded her thanks and was about to go. Wasn't Heiji coming, too? She looked over her shoulder. He was still there, waving to her, while the smoke from the fire flooded the room they were in.

In a flash, she understood. _He won't make it without a mask._ Kazuha ran back to him and was about to ask him why he didn't have a mask on, too.

Heiji answered her unspoken question. "There isn't another mask. Yours is the last one." He choked on the last word.

Kazuha's eyes widened. "Then, how are ya goin' to get out?"

Heiji held his favorite baseball cap in his hands, turning it over and over. "I won't." _You deserve ta live more than I do. _He looked up at Kazuha and smiled a bittersweet smile. If there was anyone who needed the rest of their life, it was her.

But him? Oh, he'd had his fair share of fun. This was not to say that there were things in life that he still wanted to do; he just felt so indebted to her. Sticking up for him every time.

When she was asked about it later, Kazuha really couldn't say what had come over of her in that moment. Maybe it was a stronger Kazuha, one who knew exactly what to do.

Because just then, she reached down, and with all the strength in her body, pulled Heiji up. "Don't be silly. Of course you're goin' ta get out." _And I'd never go out without you._

Kazuha ripped the oxygen mask off her face and gave it to Heiji. "You breathe a minute, I'll breathe a minute."

It was as if they were dangling on the cliff again, with only a measly tree branch seperating them from the abyss down below.

Heiji didn't say anything. He was filled with respect and admiration for this girl, this girl who never failed to astonish him at her never-ending supply of kindness and selflessness. This girl who never gave up, who, even if she was hurt, didn't try to show it; this girl, who had the face of an angel but the heart of a lion. _If I ever get outta here, I'm gonna tell her how I feel._

So they turned to the door and began to try to find their way out. Kazuha felt the corners of her mouth tug up into a smile.

**You aho, I'm never going to leave you behind.**

oOo

Ran screamed shrilly as the hunk of metal fell down just inches to her right. _CRASH!_

A few seconds later, another piece came tumbling down from the sky. She closed her eyes and hoped for the best.

Shinichi winced as the piece that was about to hit Ran came down on his left leg.

She turned around, eyes shadowy and scared. "Daijoubu?"

Shinichi managed a weak grin. He assessed their situation. _So...two pieces of metal came crashing down on us, they somehow missed, and we're now stuck in a triangle formation with a piece on either side. Yeah. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful._

Ran was quiet as she ripped a piece off her shirt to bandage his wound. It was her favorite shirt. It was just yellow, but it was all that she had on that day.

The day that her mother left.

She'd gone to her mother's closet and rummaged around, enjoying the feel of silks and linens and cotton under her small fingertips, tasting the bitter and salty flavor of tears at the same time. Ran finally found that shirt.

It was the shirt Eri always wore to all the important events: Ran's karate competitions, meeting with Ran's teachers, and so on.

Staring at that plain yellow shirt brought back memories as magnets attracted metal. There was Ran holding on to her mother's hand in preschool, Ran at her first karate championship, Ran with her mother at her elementary school...so many precious memories of times that had passed her by and would never come back again.

And so, as Ran painstakingly ripped off a portion of that same yellow shirt, she remembered one other memory: the memory of him with a soccer ball, inviting her to play outside with him instead of crying over her mother's closet.

He'd known how much pain she was in, and yet he dared to approach her when she was desperately pushing everyone away.

That was all that mattered to Ran now. She finished bandaging the wound and smiled up at Shinichi.

"It's going to be fine," she proclaimed in an effort to ease her rattled nerves. "If we get out, we can get this treated." Ran offered a shaky smile.

Shinichi's eyes narrowed and became fierce, but his voice was gentle. "Not if we get out, _when _we get out."

A shaft of light pierced through a tiny hole in the metal, and Shinichi had a sudden burst of courage. "Come on."

He staggered to his feet and somehow managed to pull himself out of the hole. When questioned about it later by his relatives (namely Yukiko), he replied that he had only one thought in his head: "I'm not going to let her die here."

But we're not talking about later on. We're talking about right now.

And so Shinichi smiled his "I-can-do-anything" lopsided grin and offered a hand to Ran.

**Because I'm never going to let you go.**

oOo

He was on the roof, and the fire was getting closer.

Kaito ran through possible escape plans in his head: 1. Stay here and choke from the smoke, or 2. Attempt to open the hang-glider, which is broken for the bazillionth time (Must. Get. Jii. To. Fix!), or 3. Give up.

He dismissed the third notion as quickly as he thought of it. Kaitou Kid never gave up, and so Kuroba Kaito never would, either.

With a sigh, he pressed the button to turn his cape into a glider.

It wasn't working.

A voice came from behind him. "What's that?"

Kaito nearly fell off the roof, and it would've been the end for him if a hand hadn't suddenly shot out and grabbed him. His jacket banged against the side of the building, creating a hollow metal sound. _That must've been the button for the glider, _Kaito thought miserably.

A face peered over the roof at him.

For a full 5 seconds Kaito was speechless. "Aoko!"

She gave no reply and used amazing upper body strength to pull him closer to her. "Grab on, you idiot!" _Unless you want me to drop you..._

A few seconds later, Kaito sat, shocked, on the rooftop. Not because he'd made it back onto the roof (one needs a certain amount of strength to become a certain white-clad, handsome, Magician in the Moonlight), but because of his situation.

Or more correctly, her situation.

She wasn't supposed to be here. It just wasn't...right.

Just like you never drank coffee with no sugar, or ate ice cream without sprinkles.

For Aoko to be here...it couldn't be done. It shouldn't have been done.

A sudden crackle from the fire below painfully reminded Kaito of how he was running out of time to escape. _I have to get her out of here. Even if it's the last thing I do._

Kaito felt his pockets. _Oh no! The glider's controller is gone. What do I do? What do I do? What do I-_

Aoko broke into his frenzied state of mind. "What's this?" she asked as she held up his missing controller in her hand, and Kaito had never been happier to see it in his life.

"That's great!" He snatched it over from her and pressed the red button. To Kaito's surprise, the cape morphed into his regular hang-glider. That is, his Kid hang-glider.

If Aoko was surprised by this development, she gave no comment. It made Kaito wonder if she had known all along.

But it was not time for wondering. In fact, there was no time for wondering. The smoke was getting closer, and as soon as it reached the rooftop, it would smother them and they would both be suffocated to death.

The hang-glider could hold only one person in its broken state. To make it hold two would increase the chance of crashing. And that's not a good thing, mind you.

_Well, better for one person to survive than for both to die, _Kaito thought. So he set Poker Face into action and attached the cape to Aoko's slim frame. He pushed her off the side of the building.

At first, she wobbled, but Aoko gradually got the hang of it. Kaito waved goodbye to her as he watched her become a speck in the distance. His heart caught in his throat as she suddenly veered to one side, narrowly missing the side of the building.

He had to duck as she came back toward him and swung him up toward her. Kaito stared up at her, Poker Face forgotten.

"What are you doing, Ba-Kaito? Grab on!" Aoko tore her gaze from the sky for a split second to flash a glance at him.

She had always known that Kaito wasn't a selfish person, from the time he actually gave his ice cream cone to her (just because she missed her father and was about to cry!) to the time when he bought a brand-new mechanical pencil for her because she left her money at home.

It had never hit her until now just how much he meant to her. Or more accurately, just how much she meant to him.

Oh, sure, people had always been saying how Kaito was unusually-and exceptionally-nice to her. But right after they proclaimed that Aoko was special to him, Kaito would do something that annoyed her, like flipping her skirt or stealing her chocolate.

And Aoko would convince herself again that Kaito treated her just like any of her other friends. But there'd always been a tiny spark of hope, so small that even Aoko barely noticed it, that maybe-just _maybe_-she meant a little more to him than a friend.

That spark of hope grew into a roaring fire when she finally realized that Kaito intended to let her use his Kid glider (yes, she knew about his "secret") while he stayed behind.

Aoko was fully aware of how, no matter how much she meant to him, he meant that much to her, and she wasn't flying off without him.

So as she stared into those bottomless pools of blue, she smiled.

Not a big smile. A little one. A faint tug at the corners of her lips.

And he smiled too, without Poker Face.

Maybe the glider sensed that these two weren't supposed to-and couldn't-die yet, because somehow, it managed to be perfectly alright as it carried both of them away from the smoky, fire-filled buildings that were the Twin Towers.

**No matter where I go, you're going with me.**

oOo

AN: This took me a while to write, between juggling schoolwork and extracurriculars. So please take the time to review!

This was originally supposed to be a one-shot (like it says in the summary), but an evil plot bunny attacked me with the poem in the previous chapter and I just HAD to put it on, you know?


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